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With the expanding role of electronic and social media in the affairs of the NDA Government at the Centre, the work culture in the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the prime official media for dissemination of all official information and publicity, has undergone a major shift towards counter narrative in the form of rejoinder, rebuttal and clarification from its basic tasks of dishing out developmental information. The result has been enough blank space in the media world to file negative and adversarial news, in the absence of increased developmental information, so much so that only negative sentiments are generated in the public against the Government. And PIB’s pro-active counter narrative is not helpful at all.

Never before in the electoral history of India has any state assembly attracted such a wide attention like election to the Bihar assembly this year. While even the international scholars nurse the view that this election will change the dynamics and dimension of the Indian politics, it is also claimed that it is for the first time that caste is being used in the most ruthless manner by the contending alliances; Narendra Modi led NDA and Nitish Kumar led Grand Secular Alliance.

Now Mamata’s Trinamool Congress rigs even municipal elections!

When it comes to centre-state relations, no party in India provokes New Delhi more than the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Its anti-Centre attitude often leads to pathological extremes of political intolerance.

“Kufr toota khuda khuda karke”.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has at long last broken his Sphinx-like silence. Why was he forced to speak up so late? Was it change of heart or the widespread outrage over the lynching of Dadri’s 52-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq? Or, were it the compulsions of the forthcoming Bihar assembly elections which forced him to break his 16-month-long silence? In this era of opportunistic politics, hardboiled leaders often start acting like chameleons.

Since communalism is built into the BJP’s genes, just as corruption is in the Congress’, Narendra Modi faces the unique challenge of changing, or at least moderating, his own party’s outlook if he is serious about his goal of development. Otherwise, interfaith tension will scare away investors.

The International Monetary Fund earlier this week came out with its growth forecast for various countries, which said India will remain the World's fastest growing major economy at 7.3 per cent in 2015-16. This may be marginally lower than its earlier projection of 7.5 per cent for this financial year. But the significant aspect is that India will accelerate its growth rate to 7.5 per cent next fiscal year while all other major economies are expected to slowdown.

‘Cosmopolitans’ of the Indian Union were united in their righteous anger when the news broke that the Maharashtra government had decided to make knowledge of Marathi language a pre-condition for applying for new auto-rickshaw licenses. People who will never ride an auto-rickshaw in Mumbai, people who will always converse with auto-rickshaw drivers in Hindi when in Delhi and people who never raise any eyebrow with the rule that Central government job applications can be made in Hindi but not in Marathi, have now pounced upon this, waving the banner of ‘cosmopolitanism’.

Writer Nayantara Sehgal and poet Ashok Vajpeyi have returned their Sahitya Akademi Awards in protest against lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq Ahmed in Dadri (U.P) by a mob driven by a rumour that he had stored or consumed beef. It has now turned out that the meat was not of cow but of goat’s. In another bizarre incident the Shiv Sena forced the cancellation of a concert by noted Pakistani ghazal singer Ghulam Ali who was scheduled to perform in Mumbai as a tribute to Jagjit Singh on his fourth death anniversary. Both acts are reprehensible and need to be dealt with iron hands and culprits brought to book. Even President Pranab Mukherjee, without mentioning Dadri incident, condemned the gruesome murder. He spoke feelingly of the need to defend India’s “core civilization values” of plurality and tolerance that “keeps us together”.

Finance Ministers of 188 member-countries at the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Lima (Peru) on October 9-10 grappled with a weakened world economy, fall in trade volumes, volatile financial markets and China's sharp slowdown and currency devaluation with serious global repercussions.

The world leaders have just concluded adopting 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 targets with an ambitious intention of alleviating global poverty by 2030. But there are miles to go before the actual implementations are seen on the ground. The statisticians from different countries are expected to meet in April next year to fix the indicators for the targets. One laudable thing is that unlike the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which was rather imposed by the developed world keeping in view their strategy for disbursing aid at their own whims and designs, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were worked out with the participation of all and the views of the civil society was solicited in the Open Working Group of the UN General Assembly (UNGA).